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Leveraging Mixed Reality for Augmented Structural Mechanics Education

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Tech Tools and Tips

Tagged Division

Civil Engineering

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37457

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/37457

Download Count

503

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Paper Authors

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Mohamad Alipour University of Virginia Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-2018-134X

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Mohamad Alipour is a postdoctoral researcher with the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment at the University of Virginia. His research broadly focuses on data-driven structure and infrastructure assessment and his specific research interests are in the field of learning-based information extraction, computer vision-based structural health monitoring and inspection, and mixed reality systems for structural analysis, design, and education.

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Devin K. Harris University of Virginia Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-0086-1073

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Dr. Harris is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering within the Department of Engineering Systems at the University of Virginia (UVA). He is also the Director of the Center for Transportation Studies and a member of the Link Lab. Dr. Harris also holds an appointment as the Faculty Director of the UVA Clark Scholars Program. He joined the UVA as an Assistant Professor in July 2012. He had a prior appointment at Michigan Technological University as the Donald F. and Rose Ann Tomasini Assistant Professor in structural engineering. His research interests focus on large scale civil infrastructure systems with an emphasis on smart cities. Dr. Harris often uses both numerical and experimental techniques for evaluating the performance civil infrastructure systems, both in the laboratory and the field. His work has included studies on image-based measurement techniques, crowd-sourcing, data analytics, condition assessment and structural health monitoring, and the application of innovative materials in civil infrastructure.

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Mehrdad Shafiei Dizaji University of Massachusetts Lowell

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I am a postdoctoral researcher at University of Massachusetts Lowell in Structural Dynamics & Acoustic Systems Laboratory working with Dr. Zhu Mao. My recent ongoing research focused on Data-Driven Structural Health Monitoring, Deep Learning, Signal Processing, Time Series, and Phase-Based Video Magnification. I received my PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2020 under supervision of Dr. Devin Harris.

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Zachary Bilmen University of Virginia

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Zachary is a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science at the University of Virginia. He worked under Professor Devin Harris and Dr. Mohamad Alipour in developing software for Mixed Reality Applications of Civil Engineering education. Zac is interested in the application and development of cutting edge technologies, especially in context of cross-disciplinary projects.

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Zijia Zeng University of Virginia

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Zijia graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. While there, she joined Professor Devin K. Harris's research group and contributed to developing applications for non-intrusive infrastructure maintenance and structural visualization. Zijia’s fields of interest include immersive technology and computer vision, and she is currently working as a software engineer.

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Abstract

The field of structural mechanics deals with the behavior of bodies under loads, and a considerable portion of structural mechanics education involves the introduction of theoretical models to describe the behavior of real-world structural elements. However, the gap between abstract theoretical descriptions of the behavior in the classroom versus the experience and perception of the deformation can be an obstacle to structural mechanics education and learning. This paper presents preliminary results of the use of mixed reality technology to bridge this gap by enabling real-time simulation of structural elements and effective and immersive visualization of their structural response. To that end, this paper introduces a server-client architecture, where user-defined loading is applied to a finite element model of the structure on a computational server, and the computed response is superimposed and visualized in the physical environment. The results can be interactively examined from different viewpoints and the desired level of detail by the engineer under training. The proposed framework was used to create a series of visualization modules for a series of beams and a more complex bridge structure under flexure, torsion, tension, and compression and the system was deployed in the form of a mobile augmented reality application accessible through smartphones for broad accessibility. Markerless tracking was used to increase the flexibility and ease-of-use of the application and color contours and colorbar displays were overlaid to improve students’ understanding of the deformation and strain results. Preliminary results of the implementation showed its promise as a flexible, interactive, and efficient learning tool. Future work should focus on the evaluation of the application to assess its effectiveness in improving structural mechanics education as well as to identify its potential limitations.

Alipour, M., & Harris, D. K., & Shafiei Dizaji, M., & Bilmen, Z., & Zeng, Z. (2021, July), Leveraging Mixed Reality for Augmented Structural Mechanics Education Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37457

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